Isn’t he gorgeous? Joe is trying his hand at modeling, go Joe go!

They say you are connected to everyone by six degrees of separation. David went to the same university as my friends boyfriend, and they lived in the same house. When Emma and Jules got married 4 years ago, I photographed their wedding (and doubled as a guest!), but Helen and David were in Japan and couldn’t make it. When Helen and David got married last weekend, Emma and Jules were away, and unfortunately couldn’t make it. So, it must have been fate that at some point I would meet Helen and David!

Their wedding was held at Helen’s parents house in the stunning North Yorkshire dales, and they had paid incredible attention to detail. Every aspect of the wedding was as stunning as the scenery.

Helen’s gorgeous 1920’s inspired Jenny Packham dress:

Inside the PapaKata Marquee. This is no ordinary marquee, it is more like a tipi and looks amazing inside and out:

My favourite detail, a sweetie table flanked by photos of Helen and David’s parents on their wedding days!

The florists at Hart Company did an amazing job with the flowers, the bouquets screamed understated elegance and the flowers in the PapaKata tents were just stunning:

To see more of Helen and David’s wedding, there is a slideshow, and an Online Gallery. The password for the gallery is their married surname, all in lowercase letters.

Helen and David, it was so lovely to meet you and your families, and I hope you had a very relaxing honeymoon x

You may remember this post from a couple of months ago about Essential England. Well, their website is now live and kicking so go right now and have a look!

Essential England offers a unique service, 100% British grown flowers delivered anywhere in the UK, either as a gift, or as a monthy service for yourself, and they also offer wedding flowers. As all of the flowers are locally grown, they are very fresh, and you know that you are supporting British Growers and that your flowers have a low carbon footprint.

I went down to the Plant Finders Fair at the gorgeous Cottesbrooke Hall last week to photograph their official launch. The flowers look amazing and smell even better!

Rachael, the brains (and the beauty!) behind Essential England:

This is the amateur florists kit, which contains everything you need to begin flower arranging. The gorgeous leather apron is from Bradley’s The Tannery. Bradley’s offers amazingly soft leather goods in a mouthwatering selection of colours which make a great gift. All of their leather is British so again, you know that you are doing your bit for global warming as it has virtually no carbon footprint! The kit was photographed in one of Country Summerhouses wonderful, well, summerhouses! They are really well made and I’m planning on having one for my office one day.

Peter Dibble was also at the fair. Peter grows his own willow, dries it and then makes it into the most amazing natural fences and baskets. If you ever need anything willow related, email Peter!

Rachael is the kind of person who has great ideas, a brilliant sense of style and throws herself wholeheartedly into everything she does, which is why I know her new business venture will be a great success. Essential England will be launched at the end of the month (watch this space for a link to their website as soon as it’s live), and is a flower delivery service with a difference. For a set fee (which, by the way, is incredibly reasonable) you can have fresh, British grown flowers delivered to your home or office every two weeks, once a month, or even quarterly. This is going to make a fantastic gift for a friend, girlfriend, bridesmaid or Mum, or for yourself! And you don’t have to feel even a little bit guilty at spending money on yourself as you know that you will be supporting local, British flower growers.

Rachel will soon be adding wedding flowers and gorgeous boquets to her offerings, and if the flowers I photographed on Friday are anything to go by, they will to die for!

This is my favourite boquet of the day, which Rachel very kindly gave to me at the end of the day after just one or two subtle hints ;-)

I have always loved stationary, and I fell in love with letterpress printing the first time I saw it. It is just so luxurious! I think that if a business card is just so damn cool that you can’t throw it away, then that has to be a good thing. Mine were designed and printed by Sally Ann of Invited Ink and I am so pleased with them. They are almost too nice to give away but I will have to remind myself that that is what they are for!

Sally Ann also designs and prints wedding invitations so brides and grooms, take note. You could hardly hope for a more stylish introduction to your wedding.

Here they are, with my signature colour on the back:

And notecards to match:

The Storytellers and I have a lot in common. We both tell stories with our work: their job is to tell corporate stories to and about the staff of large companies, mine is usually to tell the story of a person, a family or a couple at a certain point in their lives. I was asked to play a part in the story of the NHS County Durham last week, by documenting around 200 of their staff as they worked at telling their own unique story.

Using some of The Storytellers stationary printed especially for the day:

Discussing the stories:

These brightly coloured leads caught my eye!

At the end of the day, everyone is asked to sign the ’storymap’, a huge printed banner telling the companies story. By signing it the staff show their commitment to the story and continuing to tell it as it evolves:

…….Ruth! I got back to the office today to find that my blog has reached 50 comments, it didn’t take too long at all! Just on case you’re interested, I used the Totally Random Number Generator to pick a number, which was 5. So well done Ruth, your Amazon voucher is on it’s way to you.

Happy Wednesday (Desperate Housewives Day) everyone, let’s hope the snow melts and Spring is back by tomorrow.

I have always loved pretty things and am a complete sucker for packaging, so I have recently spent some time focusing on making sure that everything leaving my office looks wonderful (with the exception of me!). I always hope that the recipients of albums, prints etc know much care been taken to make sure that everything is as perfect as possible. Wrapping something in beautiful packaging tells you that the item is precious and cared for. I love it when I go to a nice shop and have my purchases carefully encased in tissue paper and placed in a crisp, new paper bag, ready to unwrap when I get home. It just makes all the difference!

I have just had some new mini business cards delivered, while I wait for my letterpress ones to be made. I have tied bunches of them together for suppliers with satin ribbon in my signature colour:

I’ve also made some flip books (thanks to Design Aglow for the idea) for some my favourite suppliers, showing off the services they offer to future brides and grooms. This one is for Angie Walker, whose flower designs are amazing:

P.S. Just three more comments and someone will win a £15 Amazon Voucher!

As a thank you to all have commented so far, and to those who will (hopefully!), I’m going to offer a £15 Amazon Voucher to one random commenter from the first 50 comments left on the blog.

Girls that will pay for the Sex and the City movie, or boys, put it towards a Wii or playstation game!

And as it is a photography blog, every post should have a photo. Here is one of Archie, my miniature shetland, enjoying the snow.